{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6313", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 6313, "subject": "Short Sun Notes: Mucor", "messages": 4, "voices": 3, "first": "2012-11-25T23:17:30+00:00", "last": "2012-11-26T23:05:24+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andrew Mason", "address": "andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com" }, "date": "2012-11-25T23:17:30+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Sun Notes: Mucor", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "A happy Feast of Saint Katharine to you all.\n\nI recently finished reading _Short Sun_, and as I went along I found\nmyself encountering a lot of puzzles, and also possibly seeing some\nsolutions to existing puzzles, so I thought it would be useful to post\nsome comments here. I plan to do so intermittently in coming weeks. As\nis my wont, I think that quite a lot is reasonably clear, and it’s\npossible to grasp the broad outline of the story without solving all\nthe mysteries, but an amazing amount is not clear — about Neighbours,\nabout inhumi, about gods, about trees, about the Rajan’s identity\n(it’s obvious who two of him are, but, given what he says about the\npen-case, who is the third?) and so on.\n\nI think I _may_ have spotted Silk’s father. (Not Typhon. And I don’t\njust mean Tussah.)\n\nAnyhow: a while ago we were discussing the Mucor/Pike/Oreb scene in\n_Long Sun_, and I raised the question whether Mucor may have the power\nto summon ghosts (as Silk later suggests) and whether she may be able\nto communicate to others her power of out-of-body travel.\n\nAs to the first: I think she has. In RTTW, at Blood’s mansion, Pig\nmeets Mucor, but then enters Hyacinth’s suite and apparently meets\nHyacinth — he smells her perfume and she kisses him. It seems quite\nlikely that the beautiful woman whom Pig met earlier when exploring\nthe mansion was also Hyacinth; the Rajan doesn’t realise this at the\ntime, because he only knows the story of the mansion being haunted by\nan ugly woman, i.e. Mucor; but Pig insists the woman was beautiful,\nand it’s not clear why he would think of Mucor as such. So I think\nit’s likely Mucor has summoned the ghost of Hyacinth, as she earlier\ndid the ghost of Pike.\n\nAs to the second; this is less clear. One possible indication is that\nit’s said Remora sent the “crazy” woman away because she was driving\nother people crazy. But the main evidence has to do with Mora and Fava\nand their power of possession. It seems quite likely that Mucor is\nthe source of this. It’s the same kind of possession she does, and not\nat all like the standard inhumi form of astral travel. When the Rajan\nmeets them possessing Vadsig, he initially thinks that the possessor\nis Mucor, but when he says it can’t be, because “Mucor would be alone,\nI think”, Vadsig giggles — suggesting that Mucor is around somewhere\nand the possessors do know her. Earlier, Hide has a dream involving\ntwo little girls (Mora and Fava) and a wooden doll (which, on the\nbasis of something the Rajan works out later, would seem to be Mucor).\nFinally on reaching Mucor’s island, the Rajan says to his companions\n“you’re wrong when you say that Mucor does not know you. She knows all\nof you almost as well as she knows me”, which suggests she has been,\nin some form, with the party on their travels. (Though how Mucor\ncontacted Mora in the first place remains a mystery.)" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2012-11-26T00:58:34+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Sun Notes: Mucor", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Also, in regards to the below, one of the girls is equated with hyacinth in the dream. Together they certainly reach back to talk to hy, with much the same mechanism that inhuma and our narrator dream travel. The question is, ghost of hy or hy temporarily pulled forward from a point when she was alive? \n\n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Nov 25, 2012, at 4:17 PM, Andrew Mason wrote:\n\nAnyhow: a while ago we were discussing the Mucor/Pike/Oreb scene in\n_Long Sun_, and I raised the question whether Mucor may have the power\nto summon ghosts (as Silk later suggests) and whether she may be able\nto communicate to others her power of out-of-body travel.\n\nAs to the first: I think she has. In RTTW, at Blood’s mansion, Pig\nmeets Mucor, but then enters Hyacinth’s suite and apparently meets\nHyacinth — he smells her perfume and she kisses him. It seems quite\nlikely that the beautiful woman whom Pig met earlier when exploring\nthe mansion was also Hyacinth; the Rajan doesn’t realise this at the\ntime, because he only knows the story of the mansion being haunted by\nan ugly woman, i.e. Mucor; but Pig insists the woman was beautiful,\nand it’s not clear why he would think of Mucor as such. So I think\nit’s likely Mucor has summoned the ghost of Hyacinth, as she earlier\ndid the ghost of Pike.\n\nAs to the second; this is less clear. One possible indication is that\nit’s said Remora sent the “crazy” woman away because she was driving\nother people crazy. But the main evidence has to do with Mora and Fava\nand their power of possession. It seems quite likely that Mucor is\nthe source of this. It’s the same kind of possession she does, and not\nat all like the standard inhumi form of astral travel. When the Rajan\nmeets them possessing Vadsig, he initially thinks that the possessor\nis Mucor, but when he says it can’t be, because “Mucor would be alone,\nI think”, Vadsig giggles — suggesting that Mucor is around somewhere\nand the possessors do know her. Earlier, Hide has a dream involving\ntwo little girls (Mora and Fava) and a wooden doll (which, on the\nbasis of something the Rajan works out later, would seem to be Mucor).\nFinally on reaching Mucor’s island, the Rajan says to his companions\n“you’re wrong when you say that Mucor does not know you. She knows all\nof you almost as well as she knows me”, which suggests she has been,\nin some form, with the party on their travels. (Though how Mucor\ncontacted Mora in the first place remains a mystery.)\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<50B38125.5050300@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2012-11-26T14:48:05+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Sun Notes: Mucor", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Andrew Mason wrote (25-11-2012 23:17):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think I_may_ have spotted Silk’s father. (Not Typhon. And I don’t\njust mean Tussah.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "C'mon, ya can't say that and then leave us hangin, dyin to tear yer \nhypothessus to bits." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andrew Mason", "address": "andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com" }, "date": "2012-11-26T23:05:24+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Sun Notes: Mucor", "in_reply_to": "<50B38125.5050300@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Marc Aramini wrote:\n\nAlso, in regards to the below, one of the girls is equated with hyacinth in the dream." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Very true. That's in a later dream of the Rajan's, I think, but the\ntwo are clearly connected. I find it hard to see how Mora can _be_\nHyacinth - when she turns into Hyacinth, Fava turns into a doll with\nChenilles' knife through her, i.e., I take it, Mucor (who was\npossessing Orpine when Chenille stabbed her) - and in both cases it\ndoesn't seem to make sense to see them as the same person. But the\npeople who appear in this dream - Mora, Fava, Scylla and (implicitly)\nMucor - are the same people who appear in Hide's dream, and are\ngenuinely present with the travellers; so that does seem to be\nevidence that Hyacinth is there as well - perhaps Mucor is still\ndrawing her spirit." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Together they certainly reach back to talk to hy, with much the same mechanism that inhuma and our narrator dream travel. The question is, ghost of hy or hy temporarily pulled forward from a point when she was alive?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Any special reason to think it's the latter? I think ghosts can\ncertainly exist in this world - that would seem to follow from the\ncombination of out-of-body travel, such as Mucor does, and a genuine\nafterlife, as revealed by Silk's vision on the Aureate Path. But if\nMucor is indeed reaching back in time to a point when Hyacinth was\nalive, then she might have done the same with Pike." } ] } ] }